Thank you very much, and thank you for the opportunity to participate in this process.
I'd like to begin by briefly summarizing our own experience in sustainable development research at Simon Fraser University.
For the last several decades we have been examining sustainable development practices in most of the countries in the world, and we've looked at policy achievements in other areas. Based on this and my own personal experience as a deputy minister of environment, we have developed a list of best practices for sustainable development. We've grouped these under eight principles and about 45 different indicators. I'm obviously not going to summarize them, but it would be useful to briefly summarize the eight principles.
The first is the development of goals, objectives, and targets that are measurable, effective, and cover the short, medium, and long terms. The second is the development of what we call “effective strategies” that clearly document how the strategies will meet the targets. Third is the the integration of the environment, the economy, and the social into the various elements of sustainable development. The fourth is to ensure that accountability is allocated to the highest level of decision-making in cabinet and the civil service. The fifth is the importance of monitoring and forecasting trends to determine the degree to which the various targets are being met or not met. The sixth is to require an obligatory adaptive management process whereby strategies are revised if and when they're not meeting the targets. The seventh is to ensure collaborative engagement of the public and key stakeholders in the development and management of the strategy. Finally, the eighth principle is to enshrine all of this into legislation.
As part of our research, we were asked by the David Suzuki Foundation to develop a draft sustainable development act, which we did, and that became the basis for the Federal Sustainable Development Act of 2008. In our view, this has been a major achievement that Canada should be proud of, but a number of significant deficiencies remain. Many of these deficiencies are related to what was left out of the final legislation, which we had incorporated or recommended in the earlier drafting.
The first deficiency relates to the setting of targets. We do have a legal obligation to set targets, but the problem is that the target-setting requirements do not require setting targets that cover all of the different components of sustainable development and the setting of short-, medium-, and long-term targets. What's the result of that? As the former commissioner of the environment and sustainable development concluded in his research, only six of 34 sustainable development strategies in the 2013 plan had effective targets. Our review of the 2016 draft sustainable development strategy comes to a similar conclusion, which is that there is simply a lack of measurable targets.
The second deficiency is that while there's a requirement to prepare a strategy, there is no requirement to document clearly and quantitatively how the strategies or actions will achieve the targets that are intended. We reviewed all of the federal policies, including the 2016 proposed sustainable development strategy, and we could not find one example of a strategy area where analysis was done to show how a strategy would effectively meet the targets. Even in the high-priority area of climate change, we have lists of actions and initiatives, but there is no analysis anywhere that documents how these various actions will achieve the desired greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The third deficiency is that the responsibility for sustainable development resides in a unit within a department under a director general level, as opposed to being in a central agency and reporting to either cabinet committee or high-level decision makers. While the staff can be congratulated for the great work they do, unless they are integrated into leadership at higher levels they're not going to be successful.
The fourth deficiency is that there is no obligation in the act that requires revising strategies and actions if and when it becomes clear they are not meeting their objectives. We have known for some time that we will not meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets. Both independent studies and studies done by the government have shown this, yet we have seen no requirement and no effort to revise the strategies to deal with the shortfall.
We also found features of the act that we think are working relatively well. I think the monitoring and public reporting undertaken by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development process and the progress reports by the federal government are doing a relatively good job. I think there have been great efforts in engaging the public in the development of plans, but clearly there are deficiencies in the act that overwhelm these particular strengths.
Now, it's possible to reform the act to address all of these deficiencies. In our own research we have examined the experience in such countries as Germany—it's very nice to have a representative here today from that country—that have implemented all of these best practices in a very effective way. Germany, according to our research, has one of the best records in terms of environmental performance. It's near the top. Canada, unfortunately, is near the bottom in terms of environmental performance.
Let me conclude by noting that we have made remarkable progress, but there are clearly deficiencies that we need to address. Specifically, we need to revise the legislation to, one, require the setting of short-, medium-, and long-term goals and targets that cover all of the different dimensions of sustainable development; two, require the development of strategies that will clearly document how these targets will be met; three, have a requirement that the strategies need to be revised, an obligatory revision of strategies if and when they're not achieving their objectives; and four, elevate responsibility for sustainable development to a central agency that reports to either a senior cabinet committee or through the PMO.
With these changes, I think we will have a much higher likelihood of success in achieving our sustainable development goals.
Thank you.